554 Email Error for Email Delivery Failures

A 554 email error is sometimes thought of as a catch-all of email errors. It is generally used when there is a generic delivery failure that another email error code doesn’t directly define a problem for.

Some mail servers also use a 554 error even if there is a specific error code that defines what went wrong already.

You should receive a bounce-back message from the server with a variation of email error 554 in the subject, and the body should contain your original message that you attempted to deliver.

Example bounce-back message

Return-path: <>
Envelope-to: [email protected]
Delivery-date: Sat, 13 Oct 2012 04:40:30 -0700
Received: from mailnull by biz32.inmotionhosting.com with local (Exim 4.77)
id 1TN050-0007it-Dw
for [email protected]; Sat, 13 Oct 2012 04:40:30 -0700
X-Failed-Recipients: [email protected]
Auto-Submitted: auto-replied
From: Mail Delivery System <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2012 04:40:30 -0700</[email protected]></[email protected]>

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

[email protected]
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<[email protected]>:
host mail.RemoteDomain.com [123.123.123.123]: 554 Invalid recipient

—— This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ——

Return-path: <[email protected]>
Received: from Admin by biz32.inmotionhosting.com with local (Exim 4.77)
(envelope-from <[email protected]>)
id 1TN04y-0007iG-6d
for [email protected]; Sat, 13 Oct 2012 04:40:28 -0700
To: Recipient <[email protected]>
X-Autorespond: Comments
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Loop: Recipient group <[email protected]>
Precedence: auto_reply
X-Precedence: auto_reply
From: “sender” <[email protected]>
Subject: Auto Reply: Out of Office
Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2012 04:40:28 -0700

Common variations of the 554 email error

554 5.7.0 Message Size Violation
554 5.7.1 Message blocked due to spam content in the message
554 5.7.1 [P4] Message blocked due to spam content in the message.
554 5.7.1 <[email protected]>: Relay access denied</[email protected]>
554 5.7.9 Message not accepted for policy reasons.
554 RLY:B1
554 delivery error: dd This user doesn’t have a ymail.com account
554 Denied (Mode: normal)
554 Invalid recipient
554 Malformed mail denied!
554 Message is not RFC compliant; missing “Date” header
554 Message not allowed – [PH01] Email not accepted for policy reasons. Please visit https://postmaster.yahoo.com/errors/postmaster-27.html [120]
554 Message permanently rejected
554 Message refused
554 no valid recipients, bye
554 rejected due to spam content
554 rejected due to virus
554 <[email protected]>: Relay access denied</[email protected]>
554 Sorry, no mailbox here by that name.
554 Spam detected
554 Spam violation, the content of your e-mail contains illegal characters, re-sent after examination
554 Transaction Failed Spam Message not queued.554 Virus found, message permanently rejected (#5.3.0)

Resolving a 554 email error bounceback

Because errors in the 554 series don’t always bounceback for a common reason, they could be either a hard or soft bounce. To better understand soft and hard bounces, and general email bounceback errors you can read why does email bounce, bounceback, or error?

In our example bounce-back error above the reason the message has failed is because an auto-reply was trying to be sent to an account that didn’t exist. So the RemoteDomain.com mail server responded back with a 554 Invalid recipient error.

Share this Article

Need More Help?